ECZ, Tonse on electoral warpath

By GIDEON NYENDWA and BARNABAS ZULU

THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has been converted into a branch of the UPND and has become so compromised that it is incapable of conducting free and fair elections, the Tonse Alliance has charged.
The Tonse Alliance has accused ECZ chairperson Mwaangala Zaloumis and her commissioner, Macdonald Chipenzi of being cadres of the UPND, whose interest is to ensure the political party to which they are affiliated should remain in power even after being rejected by Zambians.
But the ECZ has warned that it is taking legal action against members of the Tonse Alliance for allegedly storming the nomination centre without accreditation when they accompanied NCP candidate Danstan Mwansa during the filing-in process in Kawambwa.
ECZ Senior Corporate Affairs Officer, Sylvia Bwalya said the commission was dismayed by the conduct of the officials who stormed the nomination centre without accreditation.
However, Sean Tembo, the Tonse Alliance spokesperson charged that the ECZ officials in Kawambwa were behaving like hired thugs and attempted to reject the candidature of the alliance without any discernible reasons.
Mr Tembo has rejected accusations that the alliance’s behaviour during the filing of nominations for the Kawambwa Parliamentary by-election was thuggish.
“We wish to totally reject this characterisation,” said Mr. Tembo. “To the contrary, we wish to assert that it was actually the ECZ officials who behaved in a thuggish manner during the filing in of the nomination for our candidate, Mr. Danstan Mwansa, on the New Congress Party platform.”
According to Mr Tembo, the Tonse Alliance was assigned a nomination window between 09:00 hours and 10:00 hours. However, upon their arrival at around 09:28 hours, ECZ officials allegedly refused to attend to them, claiming they were late.
“We asserted to the ECZ officials that we were not late, as we were well within our allocated window of 09:00 hours to 10:00 hours,” Mr Tembo said.
“ECZ officials then asked the Police Officers present to eject us from the nomination centre, but we refused to be harassed.”
According to ECZ, the names of office bearers on a fake Registrar of Societies printout were written in pen, a claim the alliance disputes.
“Our considered view is that ECZ became compromised the moment that its current chairperson, Ms. Mwangala Zaloumis, was appointed, together with other commissioners such as Mr. Macdonald Chipenzi,” Mr. Tembo said.
“These individuals and others are well-documented supporters and cadres of the ruling UPND. Therefore, they have continued to use the platform of ECZ to intimidate opposition political parties and advance the interests of the ruling party.”
But Ms Bwalya claimed the conduct of the Tonse Alliance was allegedly thuggish and unbecoming and accused Ms. Jean Chisenga, Mambilima PF law maker, Celestine Mukandalila, and Peter Chanda, the president of the NCP among others of misconducting themselves.
According to her, the conduct of the Tonse Alliance was a breach to the electoral process and the commission was considering taking legal action against those involved.
‘The returning officer was not forced to accept the nomination for NCP, instead the retiming officer after due consideration accepted the nomination papers from NCP for further scrutiny,” she said.